


Five Times Clint Barton Surprised Phil Coulson

by Sporadic_Writer



Series: How I Met My Man [1]
Category: The Avengers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 13:43:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6706636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sporadic_Writer/pseuds/Sporadic_Writer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint Barton is a complicated man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Clint Barton Surprised Phil Coulson

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote and posted this on LJ in 2012, and I am just archiving it here.

Status of work: Complete  
Disclaimer: I don't own this.  
Characters and/or pairings: Phil Coulson/Clint Barton. Pre-slash.  
Rating: PG-13.  
Warnings, kinks & contents: Mentions of domestic violence. Brief sexual situations. Possible spoiler for The Avengers movie.  
Length: 3,617 words.

A/N: I am really enjoying this "Fives Times..." format. I suppose I was aiming more for fluff and flirting this time around, but the  
other fanfiction that I'm writing for this pairing will be a little darker.

Summary: These short stories range from Phil recruiting Clint to their friendship developing to the beginnings of something more.

 

The first time Coulson heard about this particular vigilante, he thought that Star City and its head detective had a claim on the guy. Then he stepped off the plane to find himself in a small town in Idaho, where apparently a man could beat his wife consistently for years to the tune of everyone minding their own fucking business about his marital relations. It didn't seem like a town for the famously urban Robin Hood that had shown up in Star City.

Their Shield contact led them to the small bed and breakfast run by a trembling old matron and her daughter, both of whom were victims of the brutal ham-fisted man now lying under a powder blue sheet on the parlor floor.

The daughter lifted a cup of tea to her lips before her eyes trailed irresistibly back to her father's corpse, and Coulson thought briefly of shifting his chair to block her view and keep her calm before he realized that the look in her eyes was not restrained hysteria. Far from it.

“He was like an avenging angel,” she said softly, voice still hoarse from the bruising around her neck. “Dad was, he was beating my mom again; I don't even remember why, something about his soup being too hot, you know? And I told him to stop; I knew he'd hit me too. And I closed my eyes, bracing for it, and there he was.” Her voice started to crack, and tears began to leak out as she shook her head uncontrollably in stunned relief. “There he was.”

Coulson did his best to smooth things over and arranged for a little something to arrive for the mother and daughter each month, seeing as how the abusive father had been the breadwinner. In return, the SHIELD operatives gained easy access to the bedroom and bath upstairs on the left.

“Hey, look at that,” Thompson said, rustling through some items on the desk. “He didn't have time to take his stuff with him.”

A clearly self-made red oak bow with matching arrows (five or six with complete fletching) lay tidily beside the hula-skirted lamp. Coulson skeptically ran a finger over the bow as he tried to put himself into Barton's mindset. He doubted that a circus brat would find ten minutes insufficient time to pack all necessary belongings and scramble out the door before the police (or even SHIELD) came.

Lam, another senior agent with expertise in the more unusual weaponry, stepped up and wordlessly asked for permission before handling the weapon carefully. Finally, Lam handed the bow back and shook his head with a reluctant smile. “He left it on purpose, Coulson. The bow's damaged somehow. This area near the top is too brittle for the bow to last much longer.” Lam paused before continuing. “I think we'd better destroy it or keep it somewhere with electronic interference. I can't imagine that he'd leave it without some kind of tracing tech.”

Coulson laughed. “That's pretty ironic. Now we're the ones getting chased? Maybe he can save us some gas. Idaho now. Illinois before. Maybe Kansas tomorrow.” He felt the heft of the bow in his hands, and he brushed over the arrow tip with his thumb before making his decision.

He couldn't help but value the work that he could feel in the elegant arch of the wooden bow, the care that must have gone into shaping and clipping the hawk feathers. He couldn't destroy that so callously, so despite knowing that he might have just set himself up for a boatload of trouble in the future, he called over one of the techs and instructed her to store the weapons in a locker and send it back to headquarters.

There was something to be said about a vigilante who put so much of himself into his tools.

***********

“What a nice guy!” Hernandez whistled loudly, waving a sheet around in the air as she strolled into the meeting room.

Coulson realized it was a testament to how consumed he'd been in the Barton case that he assumed Hernandez had to be talking about the archer. “What makes you think Barton's a nice guy?” he asked before burying his mouth in his coffee mug to garble the remaining words. He did not need anyone making jokes about his supposed obsession with a man ten years his junior. Who went around shooting bad men (and women) in various painful, if not always fatal, areas. After all, that sort of thing was really a bit gauche and nothing to fawn over.

“Who are you talking about?” Sitwell asked rationally from beside him.

“Robin Hood!” Hernandez gestured wildly before clicking her fingers. “Uh, what's his face. Starts with a B? Barton! Yeah, that guy. He paid all those hospital bills from that nasty situation back in Boise.”

“All of them?” Coulson raised an eyebrow and did some quick calculations. “That...is a lot of money for a vigilante on the run.” He didn't have to wonder where Barton got the cash; the newest update on Barton's file indicated that the man had done a few computer science courses at a community college in Wisconsin several years ago.

“Yeah,” Hernandez shrugged. “He probably hacked into some baddie's bank account, but it's the thought that counts. Either way those poor people don't have to bleed more cash. They have enough problems with having no house insurance.”

Coulson hummed thoughtfully. “Barton does seem to have a sense of responsibility that many of the other vigilantes lack. He took that eight year old boy to the front of the hospital himself. We just missed him by three minutes.”

“You're heading his case, right?” Sitwell asked, turning towards him. “Hope you can bring him in alive; anyone decent enough to risk jail to stop and rescue people from a house fire is A-okay in my books.”

“Darn.” Hernandez pursed her lips at the piece of paper. “Now I feel bad about giving you guys his location.”

“We're not going to hurt him, Amy. We're going to recruit him,” Coulson said patiently and calmly, without adding the resolution behind his words: I'm going to recruit him.

As it turned out, Barton really was a nice guy. But still not interested in being recruited. Coulson couldn't hold it against him though, not after catching up with Barton in Maryland for five minutes. Before he could go into the usual spiel, he found himself briefly enveloped in a whirlwind of black windbreaker and blue jeans, and then holding a kitten in his arms as he stared at Barton's fleeing back.

Bemusedly, Coulson held the kitten up by the scruff of its neck (and no, he wasn't planning on adopting it; he didn't have room for any pets in his life) and asked its huge, limpid eyes. “So, think he'll make my life easier and come back for you?”

***********

“What happened to the kitten? Or should I say, 'Cat'?” Barton asked a bit inanely as they ran over the roof tops together, staying a few meters ahead (and above) of the kingpin's enforcers.

Coulson paused a little more than he credibly should, though only close friends should notice, before giving Barton his most professionally bland look. “What kitten?”

“I'm hurt, man,” Barton returned easily, eyes sweeping over the surroundings before he leaned over the terra cotta to peer at the street. Coulson thought briefly, immaturely, of prodding Barton in the back and seeing if the man would lose his cool, but he restrained the impulse. He had no desire to see if Barton's reflexes were good enough to break his wrist before he could even brush against cotton.

Barton shook his head regretfully. “I gave you a pet to lighten up your lonely government-oriented life, and you're telling me that you just tossed her?”

“Him,” Coulson automatically corrected, because everyone had assumed that the white-furred, honey toned cat was female before the veterinarian sent a notice that Bobsy (now Bob) should be, ahem, fixed.

He enjoyed Barton's flash of teeth before realizing his mistake. “Him, huh. What's his name?”

“This really isn't the time for catch-up, Barton,” Coulson said, neatly avoiding the need to answer. “I don't know about you, but I don't want to spend the rest of my trip here having to duck into alleys to avoid Boss Gianni's goons.”

“Can't you multi-task?” Barton's mouth creased into a dangerous smile at the corners. “Say, just how bad are these goons? Morally speaking.”

Coulson studied Barton warily before taking out his binoculars. “Steven Dante: multiple counts of aggravated assault and rape. Bruce Williams: multiple murders, only two proven. Russo Cazale: heavy battery.”

Barton swiftly took his bow off his back and notched an arrow. Hawk feathers again, Coulson noted absently. He drew the arrow back and smirked at Coulson. “So, basically, two scumbags and one novice scumbag.”

Barton fired three times in rapid succession before he could even part his lips to answer, and he jerked his head around involuntarily to stare at the streets. It was something else to see Barton in action, and he tried to stamp out the warm glow of something or other in his chest.

Barton shouldered his bow before stretching a bit ostentatiously. “I think you're safe now.”

“Thanks,” Coulson said as dryly as he could before looking for a way to get back off the roof. He tried to ignore Barton's heavy eyes.

“We made a good pair back there,” Barton said finally. “Coulson, right? Got a first name to go with that?”

“Can't expect to get SHIELD secrets that easily, Barton,” Coulson countered, though, granted, it wasn't really a secret, or even SHIELD's.

Barton laughed lowly as he regarded Coulson with interest. “Okay, all right, maybe I'm up for a challenge.”

And that was that. Clint Barton joined SHIELD.

***********

It took Coulson an embarrassingly long time to realize it. But Barton, contrary to expectations for the ex-vigilante, actually respected radio silence and only once in a blue moon used flat, vaguely mocking humor to defuse tense situations.

He remembered once being in Barton's ear as the man ran from a collapsing building, and in between the huffs and puffs of a physically fit body being pushed to the limits, Barton had gasped out, “Loud enough for you, sir?”

Coulson would never admit it, but he had laughed, in relief in as much anything else. And he had retorted, “Not quite, Hawkeye. I don't think they can hear you yet in Hawaii.”

After one particularly harrowing mission, Barton took the earbud out, set it carefully into the tiny container, and then seemed to both deflate and inflate at the same time. Coulson watched curiously, waiting to see if he needed to take some time off to recharge.

Instead of heading for the swimming pool or the masseuse (more practical than decadent, really), Barton slowly sauntered over to where he was standing and held out a hand, palm up.

Half expecting some kind of prank, Coulson reluctantly looked down at Barton's hand to find a small wooden figurine. He glanced sharply upwards to look Barton hard in the face, but he saw nothing more than a slightly diffident smile.

“I had some extra time in between waiting for the targets, so,” Barton shrugged casually. “You're the biggest Captain America fan that I know.” Without waiting for a response, he put the figurine (sanded and painted) into Coulson's hand and curled the stiff fingers around it.

Staring down at the unexpected gift, Phil discarded several responses before letting out the most appropriate one: “You're really good with your hands.”

He wanted to brain himself with his gun. Clint's mouth twitched, but he didn't take it; he stuffed his hands into his pockets and rocked back boyishly on his heels before giving Phil a full-on smile. “I got some good inspiration.” Then he followed Sitwell to complete the debriefing, leaving Phil with a smile that wouldn't quit until he smacked himself lightly on the forehead.

Thankful that all the other agents around were preoccupied with various tasks (suspiciously so), Phil finally examined the figurine in detail. It didn't look like anything special at first; in fact, it rather reminded him of his action figures, almost like Clint had copied one directly.

Captain America stood tall at an index finger's length and held his shield up proudly in one small hand. In the other hand—Phil squinted—in the other hand, Captain America was holding up a small playing card. One with a familiar face on it.

This time Phil really couldn't help but laugh. Laugh and shake his head at Clint's sheer cheek.

***********

Phil knew from the beginning. He could tell from that look on Clint's face that Hawkeye was going to insist on bringing the Black Widow into the fold.

Nick had steepled his fingers in deep thought before finally giving him a grim nod. “I want you on this one, Phil. You're going to have to oversee every bit of it.”

Phil had been fine with it. No matter how much trust Clint put into the Black Widow, he was going to wait it out and see. It had taken seven months and three revelations before Phil started to trust the man he'd brought into SHIELD, and it would take just as long for the red-haired assassin to make it.

Hawkeye was going to make final contact with the Black Widow on the cruise ship. She had insisted that she needed one last piece of information from one of the tourists, a paranoid arms dealer who had a hand in several ongoing conflicts and was reportedly making them worse to sustain his lucrative operations. The Black Widow would get her chance to confiscate the information, and SHIELD would decide once and for all whether she was a loose cannon to be dismantled or a hero waiting to be found.

Before the mission, Hernandez had compiled and presented a thorough report: “Diamond Meadow Cruise Ship belongs in the exotic locales category for the Royal Jewels cruise ship company. But by 'exotic locales,' they don't just mean the drops by Tahiti and Easter Island.” She was clearly about to move on when she caught sight of the blank looks on several faces, one of which included Phil's. She arched an eyebrow at their relative innocence before elaborating: “The cruise is for swingers.”

Phil hadn't fidgeted or blushed or looked anywhere but Hernandez's face. He didn't fidget, blush, or scream now when a familiar arm grabbed him around the waist as he walked down the hall of the ship on his way to meet the Black Widow. He caught the gleam of Clint's eyes in the dim lighting and knew that the plans had changed. He let himself be tugged against a hard body, as his head fell back onto the wall with a light thump, not bothering to lessen the sound since noise was the whole point.

Clint placed a hand on his leg in a way that would look obscene to any casual onlookers before kindly pressing his face to Phil's in a way that obscured their facial expressions. They did their duty as loudly as they could, but Phil was relieved when a much harder thump and very enthusiastic moaning and gasps not too far from them made it clear that hallway sex wasn't unheard of on the ship.

In another minute, the arms dealer, who was apparently a very light sleeper, threw open a nearby door with intense irritation and barked at them. “What are you, dogs in heat? Cut it out, for God's sake. Some of us need to sleep!”

Clint snorted rudely and gave the man the finger. “You can sleep when you're dead, grandpa. Why are you even on this cruise if you're too old and crotchety to get it up?”

“Yeah,” the woman from the other couple exclaimed. “You asshole! You fucking ruined the mood! I came here to get my money's worth, so you can butt out, or I'll shove my heel so far up your—!”

Clearly, Phil thought to himself, as they made themselves scarce, proper SHIELD agents had nothing on a real couple with a fondness for semi-public sex who had been interrupted in their lovemaking.

They met the Black Widow with time to spare, and she looked them up and down, noting their red faces and rumpled clothing with a blank expression. “We'd better go. Or in another two minutes, it's going to have to be a threesome.”

Clint broke into barks of genuine laughter, and he swung an arm around Phil's shoulders before announcing triumphantly, “I told you she was awesome!”

***********

Phil rubbed at his sore chest muscles before mustering up his strength and climbing slowly up the short metal ladder to the secondary roof.

Clint's scowling face appeared before he made it up even half way, and the hand extended told Phil that Clint might not be happy to see him, but the man wouldn't let him hang. “I'm feeling a lot of irony right now, sir,” Clint drawled. “What happened to listening to medical professionals?”

“I'm out of the danger zone, Barton,” Phil said, waiting a moment before speaking so that a wheeze wouldn't catch him off-guard and make him a liar.

“And my responsibilities as a senior agent come before my health,” he continued on, aiming a narrow look at the wayward archer. He regretted his asperity in a moment when Clint flinched, his eyes growing bleak and hollow.

“I'm sorry.” He sounded miserable and a far cry from his usual confident, out-spoken self. Phil could count on one hand how often Barton used those words since normally he didn't think he had any reason for them, despite what others might think.

It wouldn't help much to reassure Clint that it wasn't his fault, but it had to be done. He grabbed Clint firmly by the shoulders and gave him a little shake while staring hard into his eyes, trying to push his own conviction into Clint. “No one's immune to Loki's magic; I have no idea how magic presents itself in our world, but I'm not going to bet that it has any less strength or effect than gravity and other forces natural to earth. It happened to you, Clint, and you broke out of it.”

Judging by the expression on Clint's face, the archer wasn't convinced. He could feel Clint's muscles tense in preparation to pull away, so Phil kept his grip and fell back towards the ground, intending to forestall the other man's escape attempt. It didn't work out as he intended.

His whole month (Armageddon and near death and etc.) had been awful. He couldn't say that he had believed it would get any better, but he hadn't expected to sexually harass one of his subordinates by accident either.

Winded by the impact, he lay on top of Clint for several heartbeats before strong arms came up around him and set them both upright. Clint's eyes were unreadable but clear, and he sounded almost light-hearted, as he separated their limbs. “I'm going to show good manners, sir, and assume that wasn't on purpose.”

“Well, good, I was never a fan of the honeypot trap,” Phil admitted easily. But it wasn't above his pride to use the wounded gazelle gambit, not when it was surprisingly effective with people who should know better.

He caught Clint's attention as he placed a hand back on his chest, and he wasn't entirely feigning the inhale of pain when he got to his knees. Despite sporting a deeply suspicious look, Clint lent his shoulder and arm and helped Phil onto his feet, his free hand gently brushing gravel from Phil's back.

“I guess you're going to need help getting back to the main building too,” Clint said a bit archly. “I couldn't live with myself if you couldn't get back down that ladder you just climbed up five minutes ago.”

“Even so, I hope you're not planning to make a run for it anytime soon. I don't really want to fill out that requisition form for a tracer.” His full attention on each metal rung, Phil didn't make eye contact, but he spoke with a certain tricky mildness. “And keep in mind that I found you all those times before you joined SHIELD. I'll be on your tail.”

Clint laughed ruefully. “Out of all twelve towers, you found me on this one on the first try. I don't dare underestimate you, Coulson; I'll trust that you can always find me.”

Back onto the primary roof, Phil nodded towards the balcony entrance. “After you.”

Clint eyed him warily and sighed. “Let me guess, one of the others, or all five of them are waiting right there to tear me a new one soon as I get in.” One of Natasha's long curls flared distinctly in the setting sun as she watched them.

“I'll kiss it better,” Phil heard himself say. He blinked bemusedly and jogged the bottle of vicodin in his pocket; better blame the painkillers before they were all gone.

“I'll hold you to that, Coulson,” Clint said softly, standing a little closer than he normally did, breathing out in a slightly ticklish sensation onto Phil's face.

“Okay,” Phil promised quickly, and he thought he could see hints of that beautiful diffident smile from a year ago. He could wait for it.

 

End Notes: Question to readers: Did the story flow smoothly? The previous time I wrote a "Five Times..." story, I used quotes to help separate/contextualize each part.


End file.
